Faerie Folly and Wizard Wands

Chapter Fifteen

* * * This chapter takes place five months after the visions Saquoya experienced...* * *

Sirius came less and less frequently. This she finally attributed to the possibility of a war with the wizard Voldemort. Saquoya still found it hard to fear the name of the man; so many times had she seen witches and wizards shrink at "Voldemort" she began to think that half of the wizard's power came from the fear of so many!

Her father, Albus Dumbledore, had decided early on to have her come very infrequently, as he liked to say "Well, you are our secret weapon, in a way, aren't you, my dear?"

She wasn't sure if she liked the weight that that implied, and once told him so: "I don't understand why I hold such a title. It is unfair."

And then she continued: "Father, do you expect me to fear a wizard? I am more than he is!" The words had been arrogant and fresh, and her father's eyes had widened, then narrowed.

"Just the same, Saquoya, I would think it best for you to stay at home and study from those text books I sent you. The more you know of the wizarding world, the better."

So, she sat, day after day, reading, devouring, and drinking from these books of knowledge. Hogwarts, A History was rapidly read, as well as all the standard spell books. By now, she was on level six, and had finally convinced her father to send advanced magical books. It all came readily to her, and she still practiced her newfound blood-powered pixie magic.

She did not need a wand of any kind.

Through this time, she also had become more beautiful in a brilliant, sudden turn of events...her hair shone with a different light, and became redder, a fiery golden hue, and her eyes a pooled green, almost turquoise. Her features became more pointed, her ears elongated, and her frame grew tall and slender. If not for her hair, she would have been the exact picture of her mother, the fairy Luelinea...Saquoya's beauty was enhanced by her knowledge of her place in life...

The visions of a few months ago still haunted her dreams in chilling, gripping terror and sorrow. The screams ripped into the silence of the house, and tortured her mind. It seemed she had become one in spirit with the dark man, though she did not know how. When she went to Hogwarts, she avoided him at all costs. He was easy to sense, now, and she could feel him come near, giving her ample time to hide, or disappear. Her connection to him unnerved her, as she still was not used to feeling bonded in any fashion to a man...and Severus Snape held something over her, but she could not name it.

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One night, in the beginning of the spring, Saquoya awoke.

This time, it was not her dreams of Severus Snape...and embarrassing dreams those were, sometimes... No, this was not even a remembrance of the horrors she had seen somehow through the runes on the door...this was real, and evil, and it jolted through her very core...

Something...someone...had been unleashed...there was terror in the air...she could sense it, and feel it deeply in her blood...

Righteous anger blinded her instantly...how dare something so vile enter the world? How dare it come to destroy the very life of the earth, and its creatures?

Before she could cast about irrationally, she forced herself to think.

True, something had happened! Something dreadful! She would not sleep that night, and decided to sit up and wait for the morning; wait for her rage to cool...

Saquoya had found herself more prone to anger, and found a pronounced sarcasm to her thoughts and words lately. Ever since she had entered those runes, she had taken on characteristics that seemed to fit her marrow, and melted into her personality as if made for her. She didn't mind at all, oddly.

She was unusually sharp to people whom she cared about, and she remembered how her father had finally sat her down the last visit to Hogwarts.

"My dear Saquoya." His sapphire eyes had peered over at her, and she almost squirmed in their intensity. Yet, she was not afraid of him, or anyone, in an egotistical manner that was almost unbecoming to her.

"Yes, father?"

"You have changed. I do not like this...it is very unlike you...unlike your mother..." this was added under his breath, but her highly acute, faerie hearing caught it anyway, and she sat bolt upright.

"I am NOT my mother! I may take her features, but I am NOT her!" Her eyes blazed. She gravely found herself indignant when called anything but Saquoya. Perhaps this had something to do with not finding her own identity until two decades of life had passed, but all the same, when taken for another, she found her will snapping easily.

Dumbledore held up a hand with practiced patience. "I know, Saquoya, and I am sorry to have said such. But I do not understand this sudden-animosity you hold. Has something happened?"

Pausing, she considered telling him. He was, after all, her father. But she knew he was close to Severus, and did not wish to disrupt his friendship with the dark man...whatever friendship it was, anyway. Shaking her head, and tossing her hair like a well-bred horse, she sniffed.

"There is nothing wrong, father. Nothing has happened. All is quiet at home, as I'm sure you are aware."

He sighed, and continued to stare. "Saquoya..."

"There is nothing to harp on, father." She looked away from him. "I would hope you can understand that prying will get you absolutely nowhere."

Dumbledore stood, after a long pause. "If that is how you wish it..."

"Yes. It is," she snapped, standing as well. "Where are the spell books you promised me?" Her tone was demanding. For some reason, she seemed to forget to ask all the time, and hated herself afterwards for her sharp words, but they did not stop coming. Why she had done a reversal in her communicative actions, she had no idea, but in guilty truth, she rather liked her new demeanor. It was enlightening to have cast off her submissive role in life.

She liked the power she had over people when she acted cruel and mighty.

The worst part was that she actually FELT mighty...

Sighing, Saquoya turned from the window. The darkness was disturbing, and she disliked what her reverie reflected upon. It got to be almost painful to think of the words she spoke daily now. Yet, the power she felt when she spoke so, and acted so... And the power was a dark power, not the airy, happy power she first remembered feeling so long ago in the garden. Did her mother have dark powers within her? Was it true that pixies were like some Elves? That, deep within themselves, the power could be twisted into something wrong and angry? This darkness grew in her, just as night spread across the lands every evening, just as water became blacker the deeper the fathoms.

Yet, water was powerful--one of the most powerful elements of the world, something that flowed just as readily in her veins as magic.

She sighed...her world was almost too complex. She wasn't really human. She was a witch and a faerie. She was merely a creature. Not human.

This revelation pulled her down, and she struggled to regain rational thought. Of course she wasn't evil. She would only be swallowed by the darkness if she let it happen, and she wouldn't! She was strong and powerful! The night could come, the water could deepen, but she would hold her own, next to the only kin she had left! Her father, Albus Dumbledore! If he stood against the evil that filled the air, so would she.

She had no energy to think about this. Too much happened too quickly to her. And although in the past, change was treated with nonchalance, now she felt too much, and was connected to people in a deeper way. Change was engulfing her. It threatened to pull her into the everlasting night. She wasn't thrilled with this idea of character change...

Yet, she'd already changed, the moment she began to live as a witch...

Saquoya felt a sudden claustrophobia with the idea that she would be fighting this inevitable darkness all her life. She could not escape her very nature, and her heart was angry at the burden this ensued. She did not want this, yet it was her life forever.

She must always be fighting the darkness of the night, hoping the sun would arrive the next day, hoping she could stay afloat, instead of sink beneath the tormented waves of the sea...

Her anger tonight would take her nowhere. She did not know why she felt rage at the unleashing of evil...perhaps because her very blood, the pixie blood within her-perhaps it writhed at the very essence of evil that permeated and polluted the air...This evil was not her darkness, it was something alien.

Well, she would try to forget it all, and send for her father tomorrow. He would know why this evil had come suddenly in the night.

She did not need to call her father the next day for information. She felt Sirius come again an hour later just as he had the first time so long ago. The same supernatural powers zoomed through her at his coming. Running toward her house, she waited in her room. Her acute hearing followed his motions, as he came bursting through the door to head to the kitchen. She tramped quickly down the stairs to see what he was up to. Struggling not to snap at him for his impudence, she followed into the kitchen, glancing out of the corner of her eye at the runes on the kitchen door. Although Sirius was welcome in her home, she was highly put out at this strange hour, and also because his direction was to the kitchen, instead of to find her!

Sirius was rummaging for food, already in human form, and his face was incredibly haggard . "Sirius?"

"I can't stay long, I just need something for a journey...please, Saquoya, help me fix up a bag to tie around my neck."

She moved automatically to help him wrap up bread, cheese, dried meats and fruits into a small cloth sack. As she cast around for a string, she asked again: "Something has happened. I felt it in the air tonight: it awoke my blood. I could feel my being protest. What is it?"

"Well," Sirius paused, looking her up and down. "It's a long story. I know you haven't been told about it, mainly because we didn't want to confuse you more with the new wizarding world. It's a Tournament."

"That?" Saquoya scoffed. "You think I am an imbecile? I know what a Tournament is!"

"The Triwizard Tournament. It's for wizards. I-." He sighed. "All you need to know is that a...a slave of Voldemort...one of his followers...he has been infiltrating into the school all year, this intricate plan..." He broke off to mutter under his breath.

"Sirius?" she said, her voice and tone sharp and clipped. He looked up.

"Sorry...I'm just..." He shook his head and continued. "This follower, Barty Crouch Jr...he took Harry, my godson-away-during the end of the Tournament with a Portkey, as Harry had been illegally entered into the Tournament by him...and another student came along, too, Cedric Diggory...well, Voldemort..."

Saquoya sighed... "I'm afraid you'll have to be more clear. Just spit it out, don't pause. I'm not so pathetic I can't understand your drift."

Nodding, he began again. "Voldemort killed Cedric once the two arrived by the Portkey. One of his followers...Peter, actually...he brewed a potion, took Harry's blood...everything. He-- brought Voldemort--- back to life. And then, Harry tried to fight him, and well, escaped all the Death Eaters, Voldemort, everything...and returned back. Only problem is, is that all this evidence, everything, Barty Crouch was killed immediately after his

complete confession by a Dementor. There's no proof besides a few Professors and Harry. And half the wizarding world refuses to accept that Voldemort is back. So, we're at war, and we are not even united. Voldemort is back!"

The anguish at the end of this story saturated Sirius' voice. "And now, I've been sent to Remus Lupin's...he's an old friend from school. We're to gather the old group and await news from Dumbledore for war. So, I've got to go."

"And me?" she asked, incredulous. She had no difficulty believing the tale. Her father had long suspected this, and none of them would ever have reason to lie about such a tremendous thing. But now, what would her father tell her to do?

"You, Saquoya, are supposed to stay here, until further word."

Her face constricted. "I cannot even be with my own people? I am to stay here alone to wait??" Anger once again surged through her.

"I am sorry, it's Dumbledore's orders. Listen, I have to go, Saquoya. Will you please put this on?" He handed her a thick rope, and turned immediately into the large black dog.

Pursing her lips, she bent to him, gave him a brief hug, whispered "Be careful, then, at least!" and tied the bag of food around his neck. Giving her hand a quick lick, he trotted out of the kitchen, and quickly opened the door with a paw to leap down the steps, and break into a fast trot as soon as he hit the field.

Saquoya followed him, and watched from her front door as he melted quickly into the darkness. She hoped he would be safe.

Turning back inside her shadowy house, she paused. In this anguished night, only one thing could soothe her, as strange as it was.

Moving like a magnet to the kitchen door, she knelt down on the cold wood, and touched her fingers to the runes. In an instant, she was falling into a memory, a vision, and as the shapes began to emerge around her, a hard hand with bony fingers gripped her arm, and yanked her back to her kitchen.

"Stop this! You will let me go!" Her voice was higher, and she yelped as the hand dragged her with impatient and demanding rage. She saw a face as pale as wax loom over her in the darkness, and intense black eyes glittered. Another jolt of familiarity filled her, and she looked at the dark man in defiance.

"I will not let you go! What are you doing? Those are mine!"

"Yours! You cannot own marks on a door!" she sneered back at his growl. In anger, he pushed his face near hers. Instinctively she moved backwards, though she chaffed at the automatic action, as it made her seem weak. His face continued to near as he peered at her through the gloom her face in shadow. She fought the silly urge to lean into him, to see what his reaction would be!

"It is possible to do so! Who do you think you are?"

Her nostrils flared, and calling on her pixie strength, she pulled like sudden liquid from his grasp, and gave Severus Snape a cool and quick slap.

"You do not remember me, then, even after I showed you that my powers far outmatch even Albus Dumbledore's?"

His eyes widened only slightly as her face was suddenly cast by moonlight, and he made no move to recapture her. "Saquoya."

Her smile was fleeting and tight as she tried to ignore the emotions surging through her. "Severus."